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June 29, 2009

G76: Red Sox 4, Orioles 0

J.D. Drew tripled on the third pitch of the game and scored the game's first run. He also hit a two-run homer in the fourth and singled in the sixth -- and made several nice running catches in right field.

Jason Varitek and Mark Kotsay each singled twice, Jacoby Ellsbury stole two bases, and Dustin Pedroia singled and walked twice. Jason Bay (0-for-5) recorded the game's final out with a back-handed tumbling catch in short left field.

Boston has scored a mere nine runs in its last four games, batting only .205/.261/.291 as a team.

Perhaps facing the last-place Orioles (34-41, 12 GB) -- with a staff ERA of 5.01, third-worst in MLB, and a rookie making his seventh career start -- will get the bats going again.

In his last start, Berken allowed three runs (two earned) to the Marlins in five innings. He has gone more than five innings only once in his last four starts.

Lester has given up three or fewer earned runs in six of his last seven starts. In his four June starts, Lester has a 2.33 ERA. Against Baltimore on April 19, Lester threw seven shutout innings with nine strikeouts. Boston swept that series (April 17-20), outscoring the Orioles 30-14.

Might sound silly but downtown still has some wonderful art deco buildings and also some fine Victorian things, oddly enough, as you get closer to Atlantic Ave. It's a walking city, full of surprises despite the best efforts of urban renewal.

In a perfect world without fear I'd say go walk around Roxbury, up on the hills, for the views and the fine remnants of late 19th C middle class utopia. I don't recommend that any more than I would Southie which also has some dazzling brownstones and brick architecture.

I did that Fens walk from Northeastern to Fenway a few years back. I'd never done it while living in Boston because back then the Fens was not supposed to be safe, but it seems fine now, and very pretty.

Art, history, books, small museum, all in one: Boston Public Library, old building: murals, reading room, rare books, cloister, lions outside. It's not the 42d St library, but it's not bad. If you decide to check out the stained glass in Trinity Church across the square, there's an admission (excuse me, 'donation') unless you tell them you are going in to pray--so go in to pray for Ortiz's continuwed puissance, Dice's return to health, and the further confounding of the MFYs. God will listen.

If you've never actually seen them, maybe you ought to check out the banks of the River Charles! Walk across the Mass Ave bridge, up Memorial Drive in Cambridge, back to Boston on the Longfellow Bridge, down Charles, across Public Garden, drink in the Ritz bar, then down to Arlington Station and via T to Fenway or walk down Commonwealth Ave to Kenmore. And, uh, don't drink the water....

Lessee at random.... Note the Smoots on the downriver side of the Mass Ave bridge. The duckling sculpture in the Public Garden in case you're ever in the library reading Robert McCloskey to the kids. The Ritz bar on Arlington is a Boston icon. That bridge walk could combine with your trip to the BPL if you just continue down Com Ave (for the architecture) or Newbury (for the flash and trends) to Dartmouth and hence Copley. Always worth noting that the designer of the BPL was murdered in the old Madison Square Garden in NY in the notorious Thaw-Nesbitt-White love-triangle.

Probably getting too ambitious but there's a handsome strip park on the old Boston and Albany tracks, running through South End and starting near Copley.